to make allowances. "Better, perhaps, that France should be left
quiet, under the regime she had accepted, than disturbed by the
offer of another regime, which might be less acceptable. You always
remind me--you, who deal with France--of a lion-tamer at a circus.
You have a very slight control over your performing beasts. If they
refuse to do the trick you propose, you do not press it, but pass on
to another trick; and the bars of the cage always appear to the
onlooker to be very inadequate. Perhaps it was better, Marquis, to
let the Dauphin go; to pass him over, and proceed to the tricks
suitable to the momentary humour of your wild animals."

The Marquis de Gemosac gave a curt laugh, which thrilled with a note
of that fearful joy known to those who seek to control the
uncontrollable.

"At that time," he admitted, "it might be so. But not now. At that
time there lived Louis XVIII. and Charles X., and his sons, the Duc
d'Angouleme and the Duc de Berri, who might reasonably be expected
to have sons in their turn. There were plenty of Bourbons, it
seemed. And now--where are they? What is left of them?"

He gave a nod of the head toward the sea that lay between him and
Germany.

"One old woman, over there, at Frohsdorf, the daughter of Marie
Antoinette, awaiting the end of her bitter pilgrimage--and this
Comte de Chambord. This man who will not when he may. No, my
friend, it has never been so necessary to find Louis XVII. as it is
now. Necessary for France--for the whole world. This Prince
President, this last offshoot of a pernicious republican growth,